WASHINGTON — Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts appeared on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier on Wednesday to defend the controversial conservative initiative, which includes a call to criminalize the production and distribution of pornography.
As XBIZ reported in July, Roberts assumed full leadership of Project 2025 after its first director, Paul Dans, departed following mounting attention to the initiative’s most extreme proposals.
Over the last two months, the Trump campaign has issued several statements attempting to distance itself from Project 2025. The Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly denied that he was familiar with the initiative or even knows the many former Trump staffers directly associated with it.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ campaign has insisted that Project 2025 echoes Trump’s policy statements and that “hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real — in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”
During a short segment during Wednesday’s show, Fox News anchor Baier lobbed softball questions at Roberts, who doubled down on claims that Project 2025 is not necessarily connected to a particular party or candidate, and that criticisms of it are merely a distraction ploy “by the Left.”
Roberts also denied any direct connection between himself and the Trump campaign, claiming that Trump running mate J.D. Vance authoring the introduction to Roberts’ upcoming political book indicates only “a linkage between two friends.”
Until July’s controversies, Project 2025 repeatedly claimed that it was planning to staff the next presidential administration in the event of a Trump victory.
Roberts also told Baier, “When the Left continues to mischaracterize, figuratively, we are going to punch them back.” This echoed previous violent language, such as Roberts stating, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Outlawing All Pornography 'Through the Back Door'
Project 2025’s blueprint document for a 2025 conservative administration states that pornography “has no claim to First Amendment protection.”
“Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women,” the document asserts. “Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”
Last month, CNN disclosed that one of Roberts’ closest colleagues, former Donald Trump staffer and Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought, told undercover reporters that the Heritage Foundation-led initiative has entered its second, more secretive phase with different tactics, including banning pornography “from the back door” through age verification legislation.